Female Workers In Retail Face A Greater Wage Gap Than Women In Other Industries

While lawmakers and women's rights activists contemplate different ways for how we can close the wage gap, new data reveals that women are disproportionately and negatively impacted by being paid lower salaries than their male counterparts in the retail industry.

According to the think-tank Demos, the average female retail salesperson makes $10.58 an hour, while her male colleague makes an average of $14.62.

That means that women who work in the retail sector — including cashiers, shelf stockers and salespeople — are losing an estimated $40.8 billion every year.

To understand this inequality a different way, this pay gap indicates that the average female salesperson would have to work an extra 104 days a year to make the same end amount as her fellow male salesperson.

Although the gender wage gap has been highlighted across all industries, with women making an average 77 cents to every dollar a man earns, this disparity is even more pronounced for women in retail.

Across other sectors, women would have to work an estimated 59 extra days to make as much as men. In retail, it's almost double that.

What causes this exacerbated wage gap in retail is still largely unknown, but some researchers have speculated that women are often slated, by their employers, into more menial retail positions that keep the pay gap this pronounced.